


What Will You Do When the War Ends?

by I_Skavinsky_Skavar



Series: Captain Rogers and His Howling Commandos [2]
Category: Captain America (2011)
Genre: F/M, Interviews, Plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Skavinsky_Skavar/pseuds/I_Skavinsky_Skavar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On her first day at SHIELD, Darcy looks through old footage of SSR workers talking about their plans for the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Will You Do When the War Ends?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What willl you do when the war ends?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/6836) by Jack Borroughs. 



> This is a remix of a fill I did to a prompt over at CapKink, though that was mostly every character just saying what they were going to do after the war and nothing else.

All jobs are alike. You show up on your first day, filled with piss and vinegar, like a soldier out of boot camp, ready to show them all how its done, and then you get slapped with the dullest, most asinine assignments that no one wants to deal with. You're ready to storm and beach and they ask you to peel some potatoes and count some blankets.

It was a lesson that Darcy Lewis had learned, showing up at SHIELD headquarters in Manhattan. She'd bugged Jane to bug Coulson to bug someone into giving her a job, and now she had one. She had a job. At SHIELD. Doing what? Watching through a whole mess of dusty – Wait. Maybe it was better if she started earlier.

The day started off well enough. She put on her, new high-powered-government-employee-almost-a-spy-really outfit that conformed to SHIELD's dress code without being stuffy AND was affordable. Mostly. She got a cab ride with New York's most Zen, most understanding, most not-a-homicidal-sleep-deprived-maniac cab driver.

She got to SHIELD headquarters. The receptionist was friendly enough, she flirted with someone else who was there for an appointment as she waited, then was asked to report to archives.

She was greeted by a greasy, overweight, miserable man called Lou, who told her the good news. Archives were getting an overhaul, all their outdated material was being phased out, transferred to digital or destroyed. Seeing as she'd so cleverly mentioned on her resume how she worked as a projectionist one summer during high school, it was now her job to sift through SHIELD's backlog of 1940s footage and make a report of what they're on.

Lou left her to pout for a short while before she rolled up her sleeve and bore up gamely. The crate of footage marked SSR contained all 8mm rolls of film. She began to load them one at a time and watched. Most had lost audio and quite a few were too brittle. Some were of meetings where people with what would be over-the-top British accents if they weren't actually British discussed what Darcy had to refer as 'military stuff'. It got less boring after a while.

Right before her lunch break, she started in on a batch of footage in a shoe box.

In the first reel, a succession of three soldiers, all grinning from being filmed for the first time in their life, were asked by the unseen interviewer what they were planning on doing once they got back home. She could hardly understand the first two's accents, the third, who looked like a frat boy and was called Gilmore Hodge, said he was going back to New Jersey to help his father run the family auto shop.

It seemed like rough newsreel footage that never made it to the editing stage. She left for the commissary, where the cute guy from earlier, Clint his name was, was trying to attract the attention of a bored, red-headed girl in a tight outfit. The day just got better and better.

When she got back and put in the next newsreel, she was very surprised to see the image of influential American icon, inventor and business magnate Howard Stark at age 30. He looked pretty, pretty well dressed, and pretty sleazy. He was standing in front of a black board covered in chalk scribbling that might've been math, and a little doodle of Hitler with the body of a duck.

 _"Er, can we start with you name please?"_ the unseen interviewer, who sounded like marginally squirrely, nervously asked. Howard Stark smirked faintly, as if he knew that no one in the future wouldn't know who he was.

_"Howard Stark."_

_"Where are you from, Mr. Stark?"_

_"Los Angeles."_

_"Heh. What did you do before the war?"_

_"Various women."_

 The interviewer bellowed with laughter, a bit sycophantically.

  _"I also had my own business. Stark Industries, you may have heard of it."_

_"Of course. And could you tell us what you plan to do, once we've won, when we all get home?"_

_"Same as before, make more money. Might expand into other avenues of industry, energy is particularly interesting."_

_"Have you considered starting a family?"_

_"A family? No. That's not a concern right now."_

Stark then gave him a look that wordlessly asked 'Are-We-Done?'

 The frame moved, and then appeared the scratches of where filming stopped, to be followed by a middle-aged man in a black beret. He looked European, similar to her Zen-master cab driver from that morning.

  _"What's your name, soldier?"_ the interviewer asked, his earlier excitement dissolved.

 _"My name is Jacques Dernier."_ He said in a French accent, _"I am not exactly a soldier, not since 1919."_

_"Where are you from? Paris?"_

_"Marseilles."_

_"What did you do before the war?"_

_"My wife and I had a restaurant. I was the chef, she managed everything else."_

_"And what will you do when the war is over?"_

_"I had my wife and daughter sent to Lisbon to stay with her family. I'll see them again, kiss them both, and we'll return to Marseilles together, as a family. If there's enough of the restaurant still standing, we will reopen it."_

Next up was a black kid in his twenties with a thin goatee.

 _What's your name, son?"_ the interviewer asked, completely monotone, even the faint friendly tint to his tone to Dernier gone.

_"Private First Class Gabriel Jones."_

_"Which unit?"_

_"Howling Commandos, SSR. Before that, I was a Buffalo Soldier."_

_"Where from?"_

_"Philadelphia."_

_"What did you do before the war?"_

_"I was a History major at Howard University."_

_"And what will you do when you get back to Philadelphia?"_

_"Continue my education. I've got two semester left at Howard, after that I think I'll try the Sorbonne."_

There was a sneer in the silence that followed, and the black kid smiled as he nodded.

_"I'll be the first colored lecturer as Yale, you mark my words."_

_"Sure thing."_

Next up was a big man, more muscle than fat, in a bowler hat with chevrons on it and a huge, majestic mustache. He was a redhead, too. Darcy liked big redheads.

 _"What's your name, buddy?"_ the interview asked again, his back to where it was with Dernier, with a slight tinge of nervousness.

 _"Corporal Dugan."_ Mustache-man answered glibly.

_"Er…Your unit."_

_"I'm a Howler. Used to be 107 th."_

_"Where are you from?"_

_"Boston."_

_"What, er, what did you do before the war?"_

_"I was a docker."_

_"And what will you do when you get back to Boston?"_

_"Dock."_

_"…"_

_"…"_

_"Thank you for your time."_

Darcy smiled as she was deeply entertained by Corporal Mustache-man giving Racist-reporter-squirrel his comeuppance. The assignment was getting a lot less sucky.

On the next reel was another group of soldiers, all of them talking about how they were going to marry their sweethearts. The third reel started with a blond girl of around twenty who oozed sex appeal and looked kind of familiar. She was sat cross-legged at her desk, wearing a Women's Army Corps uniform.

 _"What's your name?"_ asked a new interviewer. He spoke in baritone and sounded older, and less-douchey.

 _"Agnes Lorraine."_ She answered brightly.

_"Where are you from, Private Lorraine?"_

_"Milwaukee."_

_"What did you do before joining the Women's Army Corps?"_

_"I taught Sunday school."_

_"Will you teach Sunday school when you get back?"_

_"Yes. Probably find myself a good man while I'm at it, settle- No. I'm just kidding with you. I want to become an actress."_

_"A movie star, huh?"_

_"I actually prefer the theatre. Would be nice to be the next Ava Gardner, but I just like acting."_

_"Well, good luck, kid."_

_"Thanks."_ She said with a smile.

Next was an Asian man of his mid-twenties sporting a deadpan expression. Darcy knew about internment during the war, and wasn't surprised to learn of the existence of Nisei soldiers in the '40s, just surprised to find one being interviewed.

 _"What's your name, son?"_ baritone-interviewer asked. To his credit, he was talking as magnanimously as he was talking to soldier-girl earlier.

_"Technician Fifth Grade James Morita."_

_"Where are you from?"_

_"Fresno, California."_

_"What unit do you serve with?"_

_"The Howling Commandos. I was originally in the 442 nd R.C.T."_

_"What did you before the war?"_

_"I was a Fireman."_

_"What will you do when you are discharged, Corporal?"_

 Morita shrugged.

_"Probably get back to firfighting, I don't know. My pal Jonesy goes on and on about college. Might be worth a look."_

_"Thank you for your time."_

_"Is that it."_

_"Yeah, unless you want to say something."_

_"No, I'm fine."_

After that came another man in a different kind of uniform. He wore a beret that might've been red or gray, and had a thin mustache. He generally kind of looked like the British guy from _Inglourious Basterds_.

_"What's your name, sir?"_

_"Second Lieutenant James M. Falsworth."_ He answered in the kind of British accents reserved for BBC newscasters.

_"Where are you from?"_

_"Birmingham, England."_

_"What units did you serve in?"_

_"Originally, the 6 th Loamshirers, then the 1st Parachute Brigade. Currently in SSR's Howling Commandos squad."_

_"What did you do before the war, Lieutenant?"_

_"Well, I'm the 6 th Baron Falsworth."_

_"What does that entail?"_

_"It means I didn't do much of anything."_

_"And after the war, what will you do?"_

_"I actually quite like being a soldier. My life hadn't much purpose before I joined the Paras, just a lot of drinking and fornicating. I think I'll stay in the Army."  
_ Darcy watched three more reels, two with baritone-man, and one with the squirrel. There was nothing too special about them, except for the belligerent Canadian in the mutton-chops who kept calling squirrel-man 'Bub', and Darcy thought the good parts were over.

Then on the seventh reel, Britone was back, and was talking to an old man with gray hair who might've been the patron saint of scowling.

_"What's your name, Sir?"_

The old officer glared with impatient distaste for a moment, before a feminine clearing of a throat spurred him into begrudgingly responding.

 _"Colonel Chester R. Philips."_ The old man answered in a Southern accent.

_"Where are you from?"_

_"Dallas."_

_"How many years have you been in the military, sir?"_

Darcy thought of how much shit would squirrel-douche have filled his pants with if he was the one interviewing the Colonel. Baritone was doing a pretty good job.

_"Thirty-eight years."_

_"And do you have any special plans for when the war ends?"_

_"'Whe the war Ends?'"_ Philips repeated, _"No such thing. Wars may be won, war may be fought, but war. Never. Ends."_

The next subject of interview was markedly different. From a grizzled, grumpy old man, they went to a classy lady of her late twenties who looked like she might've posed for Alberto Vargas once or twice. Between her and blond-soldier-girl, Darcy wondered how any of the other interviewees got any work done

_"What's your name, Ma'am?"_

_"Agent Margaret Carter."_

_"Where are you from?"_

_"Putney, London."_

_"And what did you do before the war?"_

_"Sorry, that's classified."_

_"That's okay. What are you planning to do after the war?"_

 Agent Carter smiled. Before that, she seemed like the ball-breaking-take-no-prisoners type that Darcy hoped to be one day, but smiling made her look ten type of hotter.

  _"Now that's a secret."_

 Next up were two men standing next to each other, both were cute and around the same age, the shorter one with the dark hair was James Dean-James Franco type, while his taller, blond friend was more of a Gregory Peck-Robert Redford with a dash of Paul Newman. They were laughing together as the interview started, and instantly looked  close.

  _"Let's start with you, Sergeant."_

 _"Okay."_ said the Dean-Franco, _"What's your name?"_

_"Sergeant James B. Barnes."_

_"Where are you from?"_

_"Brooklyn, N-Y."_

_"What unit are you with?"_

_"SSR, Howling Commandos, by way of the 107 th Infantry."_

_"What did you do before the war?"_

_"You name it; brick-laying, prize-fighting, a little bit of everything."_

_"What will you do after the war?"_

_"I… Don't know."_

_"You have no idea?"_

_"Nope."_

_"Do you think you might stay in the Army?"_

_"Well, I definitely won't stay in the Army. Soldiering was great, and fun, but I've had enough of war. No more of that for me, thanks. Soldiering and winter weather, those two things I want no part of after we win._  
 _"I don't know. Maybe become a cop?"_

Barnes looked at his friend.

 _"I figure I'll wait and see what Steve does."  
_ Steve smiled.

_"Captain, your turn."_

_"I'm Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, New York City."_

_"What did you do before the war?"_

_"Nothing special. I taught art to elementary schoolers, and hung paper."_

_"And what will you do after the war?"_

Steve smiled and said nothing. Barnes grinned, shaking his head in amusement.

_"Captain?"_  
 _"I'll go see a girl about a dance."_


End file.
